The Tale of Krispos (57 page)

Gnatios glared at him but said nothing.

Krispos turned to Tyrovitzes. “You heard what I ordered?” The eunuch nodded. “Good. Take this monk to the monastery, then, and tell the abbot he is not to leave no matter what happens. Take the Halogai with you as you go, too, to make sure the man doesn’t get stolen on the way.”

“As you say, Your Majesty.” Tyrovitzes nodded to Gnatios. “If you will come with me, holy sir?” Unlike Krispos, Tyrovitzes adjusted to changing honorifics without having to think twice. Still in his patriarch robe, Gnatios followed the chamberlain away.

“I wish you’d slain him,” Dara said.

“He may still have some use alive,” Krispos said. “Besides, I don’t think he’ll be going anywhere, not now. He and Pyrrhos have despised each other for years. Now that he’s in Pyrrhos’ clutches, he’ll be locked up tighter and watched better than if he was in prison—and fed worse, too, I’d wager.”

He sighed. “All this would be much easier if I really believed the soldiers would turn up Petronas still inside the city. If they don’t—” Krispos stood thinking for a while, trying to work out what he would have to do to hunt down Petronas loose in the countryside.

“I fear they won’t,” Dara said.

“So do I,” Krispos told her. Petronas was both clever and nervy. The only flaw Krispos had ever noted in him was a streak of vanity; because he could do so much, he thought he could do anything. Some time in the monastery might even have cured him of that, Krispos reflected gloomily.

“You should proclaim him outlaw,” Dara said. “A price on his head will make folk more likely to betray him to you.”

“Aye, I’ll do that,” Krispos said. “I’ll also send a troop of cavalry out to the estates that used to be his. Though Anthimos took them over, I expect most of the men on them will still be people Petronas chose, and they may still be loyal to him.”

“Be careful of the officer you choose to command that troop,” Dara warned. “You won’t want anyone who served under him.”

“You’re right,” Krispos said. But Petronas had headed the imperial army while his nephew frittered away the days. That meant every Videssian officer had served under him, at least indirectly. The commanders in the city had sworn oaths of loyalty to Krispos. Those in the field were sending in written pledges; a couple arrived every day. How much would such pledges mean, when measured against years of allegiance to a longtime leader? Krispos was convinced oaths and pledges were only as reliable as the men who gave them. He wished he’d had time to learn more about his officers before facing a challenge like this.

As is the way of such things, wishing failed to furnish him the time he needed. He sighed again. “I’ll pick as carefully as I can.”

D
AYS PASSED. THE SEARCH OF THE CITY FAILED TO YIELD ANY
trace of Petronas. At Krispos’ order, scribes calloused their fingers writing scores of copies of a proclamation that branded Petronas outlaw, rebel, and renegade monk. They posted them in the plaza of Palamas, in the lesser square called the forum of the Ox, in the forecourts to the High Temple, and at each of the gates in Videssos the city’s walls. Before long, dozens of people claimed to have seen Petronas. So far as Krispos could tell, no one really had.

Imperial couriers galloped east and west from the city with more copies of the proclamation. A cavalry troop also galloped west. Other couriers took ship to carry word of Petronas’ escape to coastal towns more quickly than horses could reach them.

Despite the worry that gnawed at him, Krispos carried on with the routine business of the Empire. Indeed, he threw himself into it; the busier he was, the less chance he had to notice Petronas was still free.

He also wasted no time in organizing the synod that would ratify his choice of Pyrrhos to succeed Gnatios as ecumencial patriarch. That was connected to Petronas’ disappearance, but gave Krispos satisfaction nonetheless; on Gnatios, at least, he could take proper vengeance.

Yet even the synod proved more complicated than he’d expected. As custom required, he summoned to it abbots and high-ranking priests from the capital, as well as the prelates of the larger suburbs on both sides of the Cattle-Crossing, the strait that separated Videssos the city from its western provinces. Having summoned them, he assumed the rest of the process would be a formality. After all, as Avtokrator he headed the ecclesiastical hierarchy no less than he did the state.

But many of the prelates who gathered at his command in the chapel in the palace quarter owed their own appointments to Gnatios, were of his moderate theological bent, and did not take kindly to choosing the head of the more zealous faction to replace him.

“May it please Your Majesty,” said Savianos, prelate of the western suburb known simply as Across because it lay directly opposite Videssos the city, “but the abbot Pyrrhos, holy though he is, is also a man of harsh and severe temper, perhaps not ideally suited to administering all aspects of ecclesiastical affairs.” By the way Savianos’ bushy eyebrows twitched, he would have said a good deal more than that had he dared. Talking to his fellow clerics, he probably had said a good deal more than that.

Krispos said politely, “I have, after all, submitted three names to this holy synod.” He and all the clerics knew he’d done so only because the law required it of him. Moreover, he’d taken no chances with his other two candidates.

Savianos understood that, too. “Oh, aye, Your Majesty, Traianos and Rhepordenes are very pious,” he said. Now his eyebrows leapt instead of twitching. The two clerics, one the prelate of the provincial town of Develtos, the other an abbot in the semidesert far southwest, were fanatical enough to make even Pyrrhos seem mild by comparison.

“Never having known discipline, the holy Savianos may fear it more than is warranted,” observed a priest named Lournes, one of Pyrrhos’ backers. “The experience, though novel, should prove salutary.”

“To the ice with you,” Savianos snapped.

“You are the one who will know the ice,” Lournes retorted. The clerics on either side yelled and shook their fists at those on the other. Krispos had seen little of prelates till now, save in purely ceremonial roles. Away from such ceremony, he discovered, they seemed men like any others, if louder than most.

He listened for a little while, then slammed the flat of his hand down on the table in front of him. Into sudden quiet he said, “Holy sirs, I didn’t think I’d need the Halogai to keep you from one another’s throats.” The hierarchs looked briefly shamefaced. He went on. “If you reckon the holy Pyrrhos a heretic or an enemy of the faith, do your duty, vote him down, and give the blue boots to one of the other men I’ve offered you. If not, make that plain with your vote, as well.”

“May it please Your Majesty,” Savianos said, “my questions about the holy Pyrrhos do not pertain to his orthodoxy; though I love him not, I will confess he is most perfectly orthodox. I only fear that he will not recognize as orthodox anyone who fails to share his beliefs to the last jot and tittle.”

“That is as it should be,” said Visandos, an abbot who supported Pyrrhos. “The truth being by definition unique, any deviation from it is unacceptable.”

Savianos shot back, “The principle of theological economy grants latitude of opinion on issues not relating directly to the destination of one’s soul, as you know perfectly well.”

“
No
issue is unrelated to the destination of one’s soul,” Visandos said. The ecclesiastics started yelling louder than ever.

Krispos whacked the table again. Silence came more slowly this time, but he eventually won it. He said, “Holy sirs, you have more wisdom than I in these matters, but I did not summon you here to discuss them. Gnatios has shown himself a traitor to me. I need a patriarch I can rely on. Will you give him to me?”

Since even Savianos had admitted Pyrrhos was orthodox, the result of the synod was a foregone conclusion. And since no cleric cared to risk the Avtokrator’s wrath, the vote for Pyrrhos was unanimous. The priests and abbots began arguing all over again, though, as they filed out of the chapel.

As Savianos rose to depart, he told Krispos, “Majesty, I pray that you always recall we did this only at your bidding.”

“Why? Do you think I will regret it?” Krispos said.

Savianos did not reply, but his eyebrows were eloquent.

In spite of the prelate’s forebodings, Krispos remained convinced he had done a good day’s work. But his satisfaction lasted only until he finished the walk from the chapel to the imperial residence. There he found an imperial courier waiting for him. The man’s face was drawn with fatigue and pain; a bloodstained bandage wrapped his left shoulder.

Looking at him, Krispos wondered where disaster had struck now. The last time a courier had waited for him like this, it was with word that Harvas Black-Robe’s savage followers had destroyed the village where he’d grown up and that his sister, brother-in-law, and two nieces were gone forever. Did this man bring more bad news from the north, or had things gone wrong in the west?

“You’d best tell me,” Krispos said quietly.

The courier saluted like a soldier, setting his clenched right fist over his heart. “Aye, Your Majesty. The troops you sent to Petronas’ estates—well, sir, they found him there. And their captain and most of the men…” He paused, shook his head, and went on as he had to: “They went over to him, sir. A few fled that night. I heard what happened from one of those. We were being pursued; we separated to try to make sure one of us got to you with the news. I see I’m the first, sir. I’m sorry.”

Krispos did his best to straighten his face; he hadn’t realized he’d let his dismay show. “Thank you for staying loyal and bringing it to me…” He paused to let the courier give his name.

“I’m called Themistios, Your Majesty,” the fellow said, saluting again.

“I’m in your debt, Themistios. First find yourself a healer-priest and have that shoulder seen to.” Krispos pulled a three-leafed tablet from the pouch on his belt. He used a stylus to write an order. Then he drew out the imperial sunburst seal and pushed it into the wax below what he had written. He closed the tablet, handing it to Themistios. “Take this to the treasury. They’ll give you a pound of gold. And if anyone tries to keep you from getting it, find out his name and give it to me. He won’t try twice, I promise.”

Themistios bowed. “I was afraid my head might answer for bringing you bad news, Your Majesty. I didn’t expect to be rewarded for it.”

“Why not?” Krispos said. “How soon good news comes makes no difference; good news takes care of itself. But the sooner I hear of anything bad, the longer I have to do something about it. Now go find a healer-priest, as I told you. You look as if you’re about to fall over where you stand.”

Themistios saluted once more and hurried away. One of the Halogai with Krispos asked, “Now that you know where Petronas is, Majesty, and now you have longer to do something about it, what will you do?”

Krispos had always admired the big, fair-haired barbarians’ most un Videssian way of coming straight to the point. He did his best to match it. “I aim to go out and fight him, Vagn.”

Vagn and the rest of the guardsmen shouted approval, raising their axes high. Vagn said, “While you were still vestiarios, Majesty, I told you you thought like a Haloga. I am glad to see you do not change now that you are Avtokrator.”

The other northerners loudly agreed. Forgetting Krispos’ imperial dignity, they pounded him on the back and boasted of how they would hack their way through whatever puny forces Petronas managed to gather, and how they would chop the rebel himself into pieces small enough for dogs to eat. “Small enough for baby dogs,” Vagn declared grandly. “For puppies straight from bitches’ teats.”

For as long as he listened to them, Krispos grinned and, buoyed by their ferocity, almost believed disposing of Petronas would be as easy as they thought. But his smile was gone by the time he got to the top of the stairs that led into the imperial residence.

B
ARSYMES STOOD BEHIND KRISPOS’ BACK, FUMBLING WITH UNFAMILIAR
catches. “There,” he said at last. “You look most martial, Your Majesty.”

“I do, don’t I?” Krispos sounded surprised, even to himself. His shoulders tightened to bear the weight of the mail shirt the vestiarios had just finished fastening. He suspected he’d ache by the time he took it off. He had fought before, against Kubrati raiders, but he’d never worn armor.

And such armor! His was no ordinary mail shirt. Even in the pale light that sifted through the alabaster ceiling panels of the imperial residence, its gilding made it gleam and sparkle. When the Avtokrator of the Videssians went on campaign with his troops, no one could doubt for an instant who was in command.

He set his conical helmet on his head, fiddled with it until it fit comfortably over his ears. The helmet was gilded, too, with a real gold circlet soldered around it at about the level of the top of his forehead. His scabbard and sword belt were also gilded, as was the hilt of the sword. About the only things he had that were not gilded were the sword’s blade, his red boots, and the stout spear in his right hand. He’d carried that spear with him when he walked from his native village to Videssos the city. Along with a lucky goldpiece he wore on a chain round his neck, it was all he had left of the place where he’d grown up.

Dara threw her arms around him. Through the mail and the padding beneath it, he could not feel her body. He hugged her, too, gently, so as not to hurt her. “Come back soon and safe,” she said—the same wish women always send with their men who ride to war.

“I’ll come back soon enough,” he answered. “I’ll have to. With summer almost gone, the fighting season won’t last much longer. I only hope I’ll be able to beat Petronas before the rains come and turn the roads to glue.”

“I wish you weren’t going at all,” Dara said.

“So do I.” Krispos still had a peasant farmer’s distaste for soldiering and the destruction it brought. “But the soldiers will perform better under my eye than they would otherwise.” Better than they would under some general who might decide to turn his coat, Krispos meant. The officers of the regiment he would lead out were all of them young and ambitious, men who would rise faster under a young Emperor weeding rebels from the army than they could hope to if an old soldier with old cronies wore the crown. Krispos hoped that would keep them loyal. He avoided thinking about his likely fate if it didn’t.